


Mine, My Soul

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [24]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Codependency, Fix-It, Gen, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), sibling dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 07:07:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5575942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How does Tahiti sound this time of year?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mine, My Soul

 

The way Wanda slept, Vision thought, revealed much about how alone she felt. Those first days after the battle, her brother dead, she had curled small on the hospital bed, on one side, her lower arm curling around her breast and stomach to rest on her hip, her lower arm curled down, her knuckles knotted in her hair. She curled as though she had expected her brother to arrive and curl behind her, Vision thinks. To press a kiss to her knuckles buried in her hair, to take her hand resting on her hip, to make her feel safe.

Her brother never comes. Her brother is dead.

After a few days she curls smaller, into a ball, and Vision can barely see even her hair poking out from under the sheets. It worries him, deeply, how much her brother’s death has hurt her.

 

* * *

 

When Wanda is offered the chance to train she takes it with both hands. Vision thinks she has been left too alone since Novi Grad, with little to do but better learn English and offer help to those refugees still unsettled. Training gives her purpose, and though she seems twitchy she catches up to the others with a rapidity that Vision thinks speaks of how deeply she is trying to bury her grief.

 

* * *

 

Wanda is sat on the Quinjet in her uniform, muttering in a language the rest of the team does not understand. “Wanda?” Steve asks. “Wanda, did you hear the briefing?” Wanda nods, but does not look up. She keeps muttering, hands clenching and unclenching, scarlet flickering out between her fingers for brief moments before her control solidifies and pulls it back in.

“Wanda, what are you doing?” It’s Rhodey who asks this time, crouched before her as best he can be in the armour. “If you don’t want to fight you don’t have to.” Wanda glances up, glares, and keeps muttering.

“She’s counting,” Vision says. “Backwards from one hundred in Sokovian.” His hand rests lightly on her back, gently rubbing between her shoulderblades. There are glances between the rest of the team, even as Steve and Natasha set up the jet to go.

“Why-”

“Because,” Sam says, before Vision can speak, “the rest of you have clearly forgotten what happened in her last fight.”

For a moment Wanda’s shoulders hunch in and her counting stutters before she resumes. Vision’s thumb presses gently against her shoulder, offering comfort. “I’m sorry,” Sam offers. Wanda shakes her head, and continues counting.

When she finishes her eyes are glowing crimson, and her scarlet dances around her hands in perfectly contained orbs.

 

* * *

 

Pietro wakes in a room far from anyone and, most importantly, far from Wanda’s mind. He remembers being shot, remembers _dying_ and cannot believe his sister would not be here if she knew.

Ergo, she does not know. Ergo, this is secret.

(It never crosses his mind that she might be dead. He would _know_ if she was dead.)

He looks around, recognising the S.H.I.E.L.D. crest on the wall. He clenches muscles and unclenches them, checks that all is as it should be, and that all is working. His ribs twinge slightly, but he has run with worse.

His punch cracks a brick when he finds the door is locked.

 

* * *

 

It is Fury who walks in, carrying a tray, when someone finally opens the door. “Good to see you awake Mr. Maximoff. We weren’t sure you’d make it.”

“Where,” Pietro says, and it is gritted out in the English it takes him focus to speak in given his anger. “Where is my sister?”

“Out,” Fury says, almost cheerfully. “On a job. She’s fitted in quite well with our team, trains twice as hard as any of them except the android.”

“Let me join her,” Pietro says, and it is an order and a request. “Take me to her now.”

“We can’t do that,” Fury says, and sets down the tray. “We need to run some tests on you first, make sure you aren’t going to risk going batshit. Cradle fixed you up, T.A.H.I.T.I. brought you back, but the last person we resurrected very nearly went completely crazy.” Fury smiles slightly at Pietro’s expression, and pushes the tray towards him. “Try the soup,” he says. “I hear it’s lovely.”

 

* * *

 

Pietro does not try the soup, mostly out of spite. He does, however, wolf down the bread – too sweet as most American foods generally were implied to be – and down the orange juice. He pokes at the rest of the food on the tray with one finger, but has no idea what half of it is meant to be.

“Not hungry?” Fury asks from where he’s sat on a chair, and Pietro shrugs. “The doctors think you should eat more, what with your metabolism.”

“I think I know when I am hungry better than they do.”

Fury shrugs this time, and lifts one leg, propping his ankle over his knee. “We’re going to have to run some checks. Make sure you’re alright.”

“I’m fine,” Pietro says. “And you’re going to have to let me see my sister.”

“We will,” Fury says, head nodding slightly. “We just have to know you won’t go mad and try to hurt her.”

There is a very slight _crack_ heard in the room as another brick is broken by Pietro’s speed-enhanced punch. “I would _never_ ,” he says, and he is biting out the words again, “Hurt Wanda.”

Pietro doesn’t like the calm Fury still has as he goes, “Not intentionally, I’m sure.”

 

* * *

 

Wanda feels something is off when she steps back onto base, and it is not her twisted ankle. There is a new mind in the humming glowing jewels she can sense, one brighter than the others, faster than them, hidden away amongst them all. Wanda can tell when there are new agents, new engineers, new _people_ on base, but this mind… this mind they are trying to hide and that worries her.

“There is someone,” she murmurs to Vision. “I can feel a new mind in it all, but they are hidden.”

Vision only nods, and goes to tell the Captain.

 

* * *

 

It is the Captain who tells her a few minutes later, sat in the debriefing room. Debrief was done in a matter of moments, and now Steve sits at the head of the table beside Natasha, tablet in front of him, fingers tapping gently on the steel table.

“First,” he says, and his voice is ringing with the sincerity that has encouraged Wanda to trust him since Novi Grad. “I want it known I did not agree with this. If I’d had my way this would not have happened, and your brother would be buried and resting in peace.” Wanda sees the words, blood on snow, rising from Natasha’s mind. _Requiescat in Pace_. Then the words _your brother_ register and scarlet blooms in her eyes.

“What,” she says, “Did you do?”

“Fury,” Steve says, and taps the tablet, slides it past Vision, to Wanda. Wanda reads the report, sees the readouts. “Fury overruled us. He said they had a program, intended to bring back fallen Avengers.”

Wanda cannot speak, her mind stuttering around the idea, she barely even notices Vision’s hand pressed to her back, rubbing gentle soothing circles. “When?” is all she manages.

“Today,” Steve says. “He woke up about an hour ago.”

 

* * *

 

Wanda looks through the glass and sees her brother and for her, time stops. He is there, racing around the room, occasionally punching bricks to breaking because like her he hates being confined after the building collapse, but time slows as it does when he runs with her in his arms, everything crystal clear, and she sees his every step.

Her scarlet swirls around her hands, twists, rises, she can feel it in her eyes, the warm red wave of it, feels the moment her mind links to his and-

_Pietro?_

For Pietro time halts too. There is no question this is Wanda’s mind, no question at all, the black stone of the cathedral façade, the gilding, the touches of deep brown and through it all the scarlet, her scarlet, rising and swirling like a wave of love and warmth and anger. _Wanda_ , rises out of his mind in glorious shimmering silver.

 

* * *

 

They stand, pressed together, brow to brow, hands cupping faces, Wanda’s smile peaceful, Pietro’s almost adoring, murmuring to each other in hushed and hurried Sokovian. “Anyone able to translate?” Natasha asks from the observation room.

“I would,” Vision says, “But they are speaking their native language for privacy, as none of you can speak it. It would be rather rude.”

It is Fury who speaks next. “As that may be,” he says and gestures towards the twins, “We need to know if they plan to leave.”

“Oh,” Vision says, and his expression seems almost embarrassed. “No, they are not talking about that.”

Stark tch’s between his teeth, and lightly elbows Steve. “What did I tell you,” he says. “ _Flowers in the Attic_.”

“Not everyone’s seen that film, Stark,” says Natasha.

“And even if they have,” Vision says, “It’s the wrong comparison to draw.”

 

* * *

 

“You’re well,” Wanda breathes. “You’re _healed_.”

Pietro’s knuckles graze softly down Wanda’s cheekbone. “You’re safe?” he asks. “You’re alright, training isn’t hurting you, you weren’t hurt in the fight?”

“I’m fine,” she promises. “I trained so hard I was too tired even for our nightmares.”

Pietro smiles just slightly, “That explains why I had none.”

“Too tired?” Wanda asks, tone almost teasing, “Or because my mind wasn’t calling them up for us?”

Pietro plants a kiss firmly on her brow before resting his brow against hers again. “Both,” he says. “Both too tired, so neither of us called them up, so neither of us was influenced by the other.” He sounds teasing and proud at once, and Wanda takes his hands where they still cup her face.

“You’re alive,” she says, as though she still cannot quite believe it. A sob catches in her throat, and Pietro can see tears beading in her eyes. “You’re _alive_. Maybe there is a God after all.”

It is the same instincts as ever that tell him to pull her to him, hug her, and rock them gently from side to side as she cries.

“You are my soul,” he murmurs to her, as quiet and as fast as he can, and sends the words to her mind as well. “While you live, so too will I.”

Wanda presses closer to him, sobs harder, and it is all Pietro can do not to try to flee the room with her, to take them some place outside where Wanda can breathe without feeling the walls pressing in like a tomb.

“Why,” she says, “Why didn’t you carry them both? You’re strong enough, fast enough, why didn’t you get all three of you clear?”

Pietro can feel the emptiness of the question – there is no blame there, only blinding grief shining out like stretching shadows from Wanda’s scarlet mind – and strokes her hair, rocks them gently from side to side. “You know why,” he says. “I will only ever carry you. I will push people, shove people, move them bodily out of the way, but I will only ever carry you.”

Wanda’s head shakes against his chest. “You’ve been carrying me our whole lives,” she mumbles, choked through tears. “Do you know what it did to me, without you there?”

“I can see,” Pietro says, as the memories – red raging, scarlet savage, crimson claws, all aspects of her gifts made weapons as sensitive as the whiskers of a cat – come rising to the fore. “I can see.” He presses a kiss to her hair again, strokes a hand down her back, feels her sobs start to ease. “I’m so sorry, Wanda.”

He can see it in her mind, the question hovering in red and gold and deep dark black, _What would I do if you were gone forever?_ Pietro holds her close and strokes her hair.

“You will never be without me again,” he promises, the promise he had been making every day since their parents died. “You will never have to be alone.” He presses a kiss to her hair, completes the promise with the whispered words Wanda has always told him to move beyond. “Everything I am is yours.”

 

* * *

 

“You experimented on him,” Wanda says and her tone is flat and furious. “You took him from me, you would not let me bury him and you _experimented on him!_ ” Scarlet is lashing around her great vines of it a richer red than Vision has ever yet seen from Wanda, and it claws cruel lines down the walls. Her English is almost perfect now, usually, but with her anger her accent returns, pulling hard consonants and contrasts and making her seem angrier still.

“We brought him back for you.” Fury is calm, one hand in his pocket.

“For me.” Her voice is flat, even the lilt of her Sokovian accent does not remove that. “If you were bringing my brother back to life for me _you could have told me_. You could have _asked_. Did you not think, that I would agree? Did you think it was better to take him from me, forbid me from seeing him, forbid me from _burying_ him and _experiment on my dead brother?”_

Wanda is shouting, shouting so loudly that Pietro in the next room can hear. _Wanda?_ He sends, and is met by a violently warm wave of red affection. Wanda curls her fingers slowly in, pulls her scarlet towards herself so none seeps from her fingers and all glows from her eyes.

“We were born Jewish,” she says, and the calm in her voice is eerie. “We do not believe any longer. We have not believed since we were ten, but that is not the _point_. We have already been experimented on by what we later knew to be HYDRA – Nazis.” She takes in a deep breath, and scarlet begins to seep out from her fingers, wrapping around her hands into the twisting, warping scarlet spheres of violence. “What,” she says, and takes a single step towards Nick Fury, “Made you think it was acceptable to experiment on us as well?”

 

* * *

 

Fury did not apologise, and Wanda did not expect him to. The consideration that they might not have wanted to be experimented on further ranked lower than the importance of maintaining a useful asset, and Fury had all of S.H.I.E.L.D. to think of, not just individuals.

 _He still shouldn’t have_ , Wanda thinks, and relaxes as she feels Pietro’s chuckle bubbling up.

“I’m glad he did,” Pietro says, his arms still wrapped loosely around her. “I get to see you again.”

Wanda cannot help her smile. “That is true,” she says, but cannot agree further.

“He should have asked,” Pietro acknowledges. “But,” and Wanda can already see the forming shape of her brother’s teasing humour. “We can make him _ask_ us for help forever now. He owes that at least.”

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> There were many reasons to write this, given all of my previous fix-its but mostly I just wanted to. I may have listened to Holst's [Mars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8EwBTQhl3Y) for one of the segments. No points for guessing which. Comments are always appreciated.


End file.
